Fall Behind Me
by timeShenanigans
Summary: I'm certainly no Dorothy, but I should have followed that yellow brick road and clicked my heels three times to go home. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot with a conscience and decided to follow a road not meant for me. Now I'm stuck in a new life destined for heartache. Just great. A SI/OC Reincarnation story about Sakura and her twin sister. [On Hiatus while I rewrite]
1. Death is a Gateway - Chapter 1

A/N: hey everyone! I'm starting a new fic, one I've had an idea for for awhile. I figure there's no harm in doing so since I need to get back into the swing of things. I have this one pretty fleshed out so far, in terms of where I want to go with it, so I'm going to publish it and update whenever I feel I have the chapters ready to go. They likely won't come out on a regular basis but I'm going to try and go for at least once a month if I can, if not no biggie, cause I'm gonna keep updating until I'm done.

Anyway, it'll take a bit to actually get into the meat of the fic, so for now here's the prologue arc, Death is a Gateway

* * *

"This... isn't so bad." She says, looking out over the rolling fields of flowers and soft grass. "I mean, at least we have a good view, huh?"

I can't bring myself to do much more than nod in agreement, giving her the smallest and briefest of smiles. She isn't exactly enthusiastic about our current predicament, but she's certainly handling it with grace. Or, well, not really but at least she's a little more enthusiastic and lively than I am.

"That's..." I sigh, and run a hand through my hair before shrugging, not bothering to finish my train of thought.

"Hey, you know I don't blame you, right?"

I shrug in response, not bothering to say anything as I walk down the hill we were on top of, and bury myself in flowers. I can't hear whatever it is she says next, and I'm glad. I don't need her pity, and I don't need to hear whatever enthusiastic and optimistic quote she has up her sleeve. For all I know, it could be from some anime I'd never seen and she'd just be pulling the wool over my eyes. The anime wool, that is.

"Oh come on!" I can hear her shout, but thankfully she doesn't bother to deal with me just yet.

It's nice to have a moment to myself, what with all the chaos we had just been through. To all the shit I had been through. Or rather, all the shit I had done, all of the things I had caused myself. I'd buck up and deal with this like a big girl in a few hours, or days, or years, or whatever this dumb plane of existence allowed me. It wouldn't be long, but if I could nap (heh) for awhile, I'd be fine. I just needed a moment to collect my thoughts, and I'd be alright.

I just - oh god is she crying?

I rolled over onto my stomach, and peeked through the flowers and up the hill, only to confirm my question. Sarah was, indeed, crying at the top of the hill. Her head was buried in her knees and her arms were wrapped tightly around herself. Her shoulders shook with sobs, and her pink hair was a mess.

Well, that wasn't my problem, she just needed a second to cope, I understood that. Crying it out was the best idea for her, she could get out all of the sadness she had, all the shock, and she'd come out the other side all the better for it, wouldn't she? It was just a matter of time, and time heals all wounds! I sighed and flopped back onto my back, closing my eyes and stretching out on top of the soft grass. Just a little rest, and I'd be fine, just like after she got done crying, she'd be chipper and right as rain!

Oh fuck it.

I sighed and stood up, dusting myself off before going up the hill to sit next to her, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"It's- It's not okay, but it's going to be, alright? Even if it takes awhile, it can't really get worse, right? We'll be okay, both of us." I said softly, gently tugging on her shoulder to try and pull her into a hug.

She doesn't even really seem to register the contact for a moment, and I consider pulling away, but before I even get the chance to lift my fingers even a centimeter, she's wrapping her arms around me. I smile and pull her closer, gently patting her back. I can't help but do this, she reminds me so much of my siblings, all clambering for hugs and comfort when upset. She deserves a better pseudo-sibling than me, but if I can help her, then maybe it helps atone even a bit for my recklessness.

She stays pressed to my side for a long while, although her tears fade fast. She says nothing for a long moment, before opening her mouth and closing it again. She doesn't seem to know what to say, but I don't mind, we have all the time in the world, and it's not like either of us are going anywhere anytime soon. She's stuck with me, and I'm stuck with her. At least, until the show gets on the road, and we get forcibly removed from this place, but that's some time away I'm sure.

"Thanks." She says after a long while, and I smile, giving her a thumbs up.

"Of course! It's the least I can do." I say, unable to stop myself from smiling wide at her.

She grins back, before settling in again, her head on my leg as we watch the flowers wave in the wind. She doesn't have to say anything, and I'm glad she doesn't. It gives me just long enough to cope, or at least, try to cope, and if I try to empty my brain just hard enough, I can almost forget she's there.

Almost.

[Line]

Eventually, the two of us are on better terms.

Which is to say, we refuse to even slightly acknowledge what happened to us, and on Sarah's part, that means pointedly refusing to say a word when I even slightly hint towards trying to blame myself. I can almost be thankful for that, but I know that she's just unwilling to process what happened yet. Another point is she probably doesn't want to think about it because of me. I mean, it's my fault, and she's stuck with me. There's no way that she wants to be angry with me for however much longer we're stuck here, and for all she knows, it could be an eternity.

I know better, of course, but that doesn't mean she does, and I take a great amount of comfort in it.

I don't want to have to explain things to her, and I don't want to explain how I know things. It isn't all that important in the long run anyway, and if I can get her better sooner, rather than later, that means she can move on from me and forget all about what I did. It wouldn't take much effort, and it'd help me get on to wherever it is that the path of dainty blue flowers leads. I didn't want to just leave her here, and as appealing as the path was, I was sort of sick of this whole game where I pretended to be excited to lose all of my memories again.

Well, most of them that is.

"-ey."

I mean, I do still have little bits and pieces from old lives, but nothing too important, small sensory details mostly. It wasn't important in the long run of course, but it was a fun bit of conversation in the right situation. I mean, bringing up details that others couldn't place from long ago? Neat party trick, and it had got me into the beds of a few different people.

"Hey!"

In the long run it wasn't a good plan of course, people start questioning, and you could get noticed by the wrong people. Really it wasn't profitable for much of anything other than adding a unique and indescribable twist to things, or getting laid. Getting laid wasn't too bad of a end game though, I mean, it never led to any of my lasting relationships for the most part, but-

"Hey! Stop ignoring me!" Sarah said sharply, poking the middle of my forehead for emphasis. "Geez! Am I that boring?"

"Ah, sorry!" I apologize, letting out a small laugh, before realizing there was something on my head. "Huh?" I ask, placing a hand on the object in question. Or rather, objects.

"If you had bothered to listen to me," Sarah says with a grin, crossing her arms smugly as she leans back a bit. "When I realized you weren't going to listen, I started piling the flower crowns on top of your head. A couple fell off, but the record _was_ ten. Until you moved and knocked them all down that is."

"Oh." I look down at the flower crown in my lap, then at the ones that fall of my head, then the ones scattered about around me. "Oh my _god_."

I can't help myself, and start absolutely losing it.

I'm laughing so hard I can hardly breathe right, and it doesn't take long for a snort to leave Sarah's mouth, then a laugh, then she's on the ground busting a gut too.

When I'm done, I can hardly remember what I was thinking about to begin with.

* * *

It's been months since we first came here.

I know that she knows this is the afterlife, and she knows that I know, it's not a hard thing to put together, after all. But for some reason, I still can't bring myself to mention it. She says nothing on the matter either, perhaps waiting for me to bring it up first, but I just couldn't find the will to do so. I don't know how things normally pace for other people, and in fact I have no idea how things like this go at all with people around. This was the first time I'd ever been locked in an afterlife with someone else for more than about ten minutes without me moving on first, or without them disappearing within the first twenty.

At least, I think so? It's hard to recall, but I have the distinct impression I'd never stuck around long.

Anyway, I was starting to get antsy. I knew it wasn't my choice when she moved on, and I didn't exactly have a itching to go and follow the dainty blue flower path for me, but I couldn't help getting restless! I couldn't exactly tell the time that passed, but it just got so boring, sitting there day after day, with nothing to do. I busied myself mostly with sleeping, or stretching out on a hill and enjoying the fresh breeze and soft sunlight. Time didn't pass here, which meant that night never came, the sun never changed position, and jack all changed about the clearing.

Sarah, however, didn't seem to mind much.

She would spend most her time enjoying the flowers, braiding them into her hair, making them into flower crowns, or just laying on the ground. She didn't mind the fact that I didn't talk much, and she didn't either - which was good, because even though I did want to get to know her a little better, it would be overall more beneficial if we didn't, because in the long run we'd just separate again, and it'd suck. Instead, she babbled about interests of hers to fill the time, and don't get me wrong I did too, but I found it was a lot easier to listen to her talk about whatever anime was on her mind.

She talked about anime a lot, way more than I would have expected, but then again, she did dye her hair pink.

There were a few I knew of, and could continue to talk with her about for extended periods of time - Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece were the big name ones. She talked about a few I'd never heard of - Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Toradora, and some anime I couldn't even remember the name of it was so long. Naruto was a common point in conversation, mainly just because it was one of the only ones we both knew the most. Or rather, it was the one she knew a lot about, and it was the one I'd seen the most of.

She talked a lot about how shitty it was that the girl characters, who were highly capable and badass, often got shafted for male development. I could agree, but only because I'd seen quite a few people make that same point in and out of fanfiction. She had a special affection for Ino, and another point of conversation that was extremely common was Sakura. She was clearly Sarah's inspiration for dying her hair pink, even if she wouldn't admit it, and it was clear she looked up to her. However, she often complained about Sakura's character development suddenly taking a nosedive, and how she could have been a lot more.

We... talked a lot about anime.

So much so that I actually started to just recount the plot of video games I had liked just to get her to stop talking about anime for two seconds. It wasn't that I didn't like anime, god no I loved it, but there's only so much Naruto talk you can take before you start running away from the other person with your arms flailing wildly behind you. I needed variety! Sarah didn't seem to mind at least, she just liked the silence filled more than anything I think, so it didn't really matter what we talked about as long as we were talking.

So it wasn't so strange that we were talking when it happened.

"Oh my god if I have to hear another fact about your waifu I'm going to go apeshit." I groaned, flopping back into the grass as Sarah snickered, pushing at me with her foot. "Please, spare me oh great anime master, and leave me in peace..."

"Oh stop being so melodramatic." She laughed, rolling her eyes at me. "But if you insist, we could go and explore some, I'm starting to get bored too, and wherever that road leads is probably better than this."

I sat up and looked at her, a big, forced grin on my face despite the way my heart stopped and my veins went cold. She didn't notice, thank god, but whether it was because she was ignoring it, or she genuinely didn't see my expression or body language, I didn't know.

"Sure! Go ahead and lead the way, oh Anime Master." I say, unable to stop myself from adding a dramatic hand flourish and a bow. "I trust your wisdom, and guidance."

"Oh shut up!" She laughs, gently punching me in the arm as she rolled her eyes, before taking my hand. "Come on, let's go see what's out there!"

She wastes no time in leading me forward, an eager grin on her face as we ventured away from the sweet little meadow we had come to have as a temporary home. Or, well, base of operations. It wasn't really a home, and had never intended to be, so calling it such was somewhat insulting to the perfectly good flower hell that we were exposed to. And a perfectly good meadow it was, very calm. Doesn't mean much in the end, considering the way it flickered from view in the end, one last glimpse of cerulean blue on the horizon before it disappeared completely.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out the meaning, everything considered. The message was clear, concise, and poignant, the dainty cerulean blossoms waving in the wind, flickering from view with hardly a care. The road I had been meant for closed, gone with the flowers that made up my own personal yellow brick road. I was certainly no Dorothy, and my way home to Kansas was a little harder than clicking my heels, but it had been right there. A way back to life, a life meant for me.

And so I set upon my path with a stranger I had killed, down a path I could not see, the road I was certainly not meant to follow.


	2. Death is a Gateway - Chapter 2

AN: A bit of a longer chapter than last time, and a lot more happens here. I'm gonna do my best with this arc, it's gonna be a bit of skipping around and such while I get into the main bulk of the story. I'm not exactly sure how long this arc is going to last, I'm giving it a base estimate of five chapters but that's just the estimate I have for now, since there's a lot to cram into five chapters, before we can get into the academy arc.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading!

* * *

I'm no Dorothy.

Now Sarah? Sarah is a Dorothy. Her wide eyed innocence and childlike wonder never ceased to amaze me. No matter where we went, no matter what we saw, she watched each scenery pass by in absolute adoration. From towering trees so tall we could not see the tops, to ancient empires long since abandoned. Arenas of weathered stone dusted with soft sand, crumbling under the test of time.

It was therapeutic, in a way. Seeing so many new places, progressing at our own pace (or rather, her pace), and just being able to relax. There was no rush to go forward, although we could not backtrack. I will say, however, the slowly creeping terror of knowing we were approaching the end at an unknown velocity was terrifying. In an abstract way that is, maybe it was anxiety? Yeah it was probably the anxiety of knowing everything was going to come to a sudden halt when we got to the end, and the inevitability of having to face the unknown was terrifying.

But hey, at least we're technically on a road trip together.

I like road trips.

Road trips mean long amounts of time admiring scenery, spending time with people you like, and being happy. I mean, sure there are sucky parts of road trips, like when you get carsick, or your window doesn't roll down, or your friend decides to sing only shitty pop music for an hour to piss you off so then you have to sing Tiptoe by the Tulips back at her. Or like, when your friend decides to lay on the ground and not move for twenty minutes because she's mad. Or she decides that, to drown out your song, she's going to sing god awful country music until you refuse to move until she stops.

You know, the typical road trip stuff.

Okay we... weren't exactly the best road trip buddies but to be fair we'd been stuck together for a solid... month? No way longer than that. Damn afterlife with no way to measure time, and see how long you've been bickering over petty shit with your new friend for. I want some god damn real solid answers so I can quote her on that. I want to be able to look her in the eye and say "I've been dealing with your shit for three years, nine hours, and twenty seven minutes."

I'm sure she'd do the same to me though, and I'm certainly not angry at her for that in any way. I mean, I'd definitely use it against her in a petty argument, but I wouldn't actually hold it over her head. I can't do that anyway, considering I killed her. She'd just be able to quote that at me, it's an instant argument winner, and she should be proud to have such power over me, honestly.

Anyway, it came as no surprise that we were both relieved when we got to the end of our path (or rather, her path).

The anxiety churning in my gut came to a lurching halt as cold numbness took over my body. I wasn't ready for this, for any of this, but I put on my best smile and turned to Sarah, who had a calm, accepting look on her face. It wasn't a surprise that she was so calm - that was what the whole road was meant to do. The entire _point_ of the road and the path was to let the person have their own time in a single place like our meadow until the person was ready to move on. Then the road would appear, and eventually they'd take it, and learn that things aren't so bad, etc etc. Then in the end, they're ready to move on and be done with all of this. They'd forget, and leave everything they knew behind, because they were ready to move on, no matter how long it took, no matter how often they stopped or how long they stayed, they just moved on.

I wasn't ready.

I wasn't ready, because I hadn't taken my own path at my own pace.

But I couldn't cry and complain now, after things were said and done. I couldn't complain now, when she was so close to moving on that the end was literally staring me in the face. I couldn't take that from her. So I smiled, and bucked up, and looked to her for what she wanted to do.

"Huh."

"I don't know what I was expecting out of this, to be honest, but I don't think it was this."

"I mean, I wasn't either, but it's kinda poetic, don't you think?" I ask, shrugging my shoulders as I stare at her.

"What?"

"It's poetic, like, the whole journey is moving on, and then you get here and it's like, the end." I say, letting go of her hand to sit at the foot of the grave. "This is the end, you're dead, and that's okay."

"You... You really think so?" She asks hopefully, gently folding her legs underneath herself as she sat next to me. "You really think that this is saying everything is okay?"

"Well, I don't think so in every case, and its up to you what the interpretation is, but I personally think so, yeah."

"I guess you are the literature expert, eh?"

"Ha!" I can't help but snort, gently hitting Sarah's arm. "I certainly try, even if it can't compare to the ancient wisdom and knowledge of the great anime master."

"Oh shut it!" Sarah laughs, punching my arm back before pulling herself up and giving herself a pompous air. "But I'll agree, I must be far ahead of you, oh young one."

We share a laugh for a moment, before eventually falling silent, the only sound our own breathing. There's nothing to say, and although the silence certainly wasn't uncomfortable, I still found myself longing to say something. There were a lot of options before me. What should our final words to each other be? I could say something profoundly poetic, and leave us on a dramatic cliffhanger, or I could say something gentle and comforting. I could say something like 'see you on the other side' or perhaps 'it's gonna be okay', or I could stick to a more melancholy mood.

There were a lot of things I probably _should_ have said in those moments.

But none of them really fit.

So instead, I took a deep breath and stood up, setting my hands on my hips. My gut clenched in fear, and my palms were sweaty, but I took another deep breath against my fear, and turned to look at her. I extended my hand silently, and for a moment she just stared at me, at my hand, uncomprehending what I meant. Then a flash of realization came over her features, and she smiled softly as her hand found mine.

She said nothing, just looked at me and nodded as we stepped closer to the grave.

"C'mon, let's get going, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Without another word, we plunged down into that earthen coffin, and the unending darkness it included. Our bodies fading from view, our consciousnesses becoming part of that soft nothingness. It was comforting, like sleep, but sudden and soft and I found myself helpless to do anything about it, but I couldn't care less. Nothing mattered anymore - there was nothing to see. There was nothing to see, or hear, or feel, it was just a sense of being part of something without actually existing. It would have been disorienting, if I had orientations to have disoriented. It wasn't quite unlike going to sleep, so that's what I'll call it - we just went to sleep.

And eventually, I woke up.

* * *

When consciousness finally came, I found myself robbed of most of my senses.

Everything was dark, and noises were muddled if they were there at all, and I couldn't smell or taste, and there was nothing to touch. I was unable to reach out for comfort because my limbs wouldn't obey me, and with no sense of up or down I couldn't begin to fathom trying to _go_ anywhere even if I could. I was lost, scared, and horribly alone. There was nothing for me here, except for the rhythmic pulsing in my chest, and the way sleep tugged at my brain every few minutes.

It was a fight just to stay awake, and when I did manage to grasp onto the slim shred of control over myself, it was fleeting and my mind was muddled.

Yet there was nothing I could do to remedy it.

I had no control over myself, except for the sliver of consciousness I was awarded every so often. When I was able to keep my head on straight, I constantly tried to stretch and move and make sense of where I was, although that didn't get me far. I would try and break free of whatever was keeping me here, only to slowly drift back into numbness, and fall asleep once more, submitting myself to the darkness.

Eventually, I began to dream.

It was hard to make sense of dreaming and reality, a fact which I was constantly furious over.

Nightmares plagued my sleeping hours, as though to mock me for the little control that I had during their waking counterpart. Fear, panic, terror, and the feeling of being trapped. Cold metal against my arms, pain dully aching in my legs as metal trapped them in place. Warmth from hands on mine, and a rattling whistle clacking my teeth together.

The last words echoed in my brain.

"Don't look."  
 _  
"Don't look."_

And eventually, I gave up.

There was no point in fighting against my own body and mind, I'd just lose in the end.

So I gave up.

I slept when I felt tired, I moved when I felt cramped, and I let the dull echoing sound all around me calm me. Once I finally let myself be comfortable, once I finally gave in, I was much better off. I didn't have to think, or feel, or fight against my own brain. I just... existed. I was at peace, finally, after so long of fighting against myself it didn't matter anymore!

It was nice.

It was nice to finally, blissfully, be unable to think. It was amazing to not have to worry about where I was, or what was going on, and the anxiety that came with it. I didn't have to care about Sarah, always worrying about her feelings, and happiness, and I didn't have to feel guilty anymore! I didn't have to feel anything! That was the best part! I didn't have to care anymore, I didn't have to care about anything, not Sarah, or myself, or the circumstances which had led to this point.

It was the single best time of my entire life, afterlife, and new life.

But of course, all good things have to come to an end.

* * *

According to every person in my life, I was born on March twenty-eighth during the year of the Kyuubi attack.

I don't remember much from my early childhood, let alone my birth, so I couldn't give you a great amount of detail, or even much an account at all. I only remember that blissful numbness, where I didn't have to care about myself or anyone or thing else, and then suddenly being plunged into a new environment. Bright lights, blurs of color, and an assault on every single one of my senses. The hands holding me were too rough, my body unbearably hot but the room deathly cold, and so much noise I thought my eardrums would burst. There was no up or down or left or right.

So naturally, I cried.

It's a natural reaction for a baby, and I'll admit that I wasn't exactly myself back then, so I can't really be too hard on little Umeko.

I'd gone from sensory deprivation to overload within the span of seconds, and then I hadn't even been able to voice my complaints. I had no control over my limbs, or my bodily functions, and I certainly had barely any control of my voice past the screaming and crying. It was absolute hell.

Hell, I couldn't even think straight.

For the first six months of my life I was the worst child to raise.

My mind had certainly deteriorated during my time growing in my mother's womb, probably some sort of cosmic retribution for daring to follow a path I wasn't meant to. It was like fighting an uphill battle in the rain, and the hill you're on is made of dirt, and sand. I could hardly make sense of what was going on half the time, when I was able to make conscious decisions, and when I wasn't I was basically watching from a side perspective as my baby flesh prison wreaked havoc upon her diapers.

I must have been a little hellion for my parents, bouncing back and forth from lovely cute baby to a too-smart-for-her-own-good baby with a tinge of adventure. I would go from drooling on a rattle to shaking it violently when I wanted something, or sometimes I'd even hit my parents with it on purpose (though this... was a mixed bag considering I didn't have great coordination). It's a miracle that they didn't take me in for evaluation or something, considering how I acted was more reminiscent of a split personality (which... I suppose I technically was) than a weird baby.

I didn't even care about my parents much at first. It wasn't that I hated them, I just... didn't know them. I didn't see the point in forming an attachment when my body had that covered, after all. It wasn't important to form bonds with them at first, because I wasn't even really sure I was real at the time, or that I was going to last long. After all, premature children tend to come with a list of complications, especially when multiples. I could die in my sleep at any given moment, and rectify the cosmic mistake that had allowed me to follow Sarah in the first place.

I was... actually close to giving up when _it_ happened.

The Kyuubi attack.

I was all of six months old, playing with Sakura in our play pen, when I felt this jolt of terror. I couldn't tell what was going on for a few moments, my heart seizing in my chest as that wave of malevolent chakra swept over me. Sakura began to cry next to me, and I felt as though I'd been doused with cold water.

My senses were suddenly and dangerously alert, though I was powerless to do anything but wait for our slow, slow death.

It felt like an eternity as we lay there, Sakura crying and wailing for help as I desperately rolled over and grasped onto her little pink onesie. The house rattled and rocked as we were trapped, both of us unable to help the other. My breath caught in my throat for an infinite amount of time, before I felt a pair of fingers brushing against my back.

I remember my mother grunting, arms shaking as she settled her hand on my back and side.

She gently shushed me, and I took a shuddering breath in, and then back out, as my lungs seemed to finally remember their primary use. Sakura kept crying, big, loud wailing that didn't stop. The hand moved over me, and brushed against my sister, and it seemed to help calm her down as mother's shaking hand gently soothed her.

Sakura fell silent, aside from little hiccuping sobs, and then the hand moved back.

I rolled over, and looked at my mother, tears streaming down her face as she drug herself across the ground with her arms. She drug herself over to the wheelchair in the corner - and emergency one, I think I remembered my father saying, and for a long moment, she just looked at it. I watched her shoulders shake with effort, and I could faintly hear her ragged breathing (so loud that it broke through the blood rushing in my ears).

She stared at the wheelchair a moment, before reaching her arm out and pulling it closer.

She struggled to get in it, unable to stand up on her own, and then she slumped down on the floor and I felt my heart stop. If she couldn't get up, if she couldn't get in that wheelchair and get us out, then we were fucked. There was no way the two of us could get out of this house on our own, hell I could barely crawl an inch forward on my own, let alone however far it was to get help.

So naturally, I did the only thing I could think of.

I cried.

I'd like to say I did it on purpose, that I summoned all of my willpower and cried upon command to try and snap her out of it. But... in all honesty, it wasn't. I just... got afraid. I didn't know what to do, and I was scared, and so I started crying, my eyes shut tight as I wailed so hard it got Sakura to start crying again too.

And then, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard a tearing sound, and hands were on my sides.

Mom cradled me against her chest, tears streaking down her flushed face as she desperately rocked me, before she grabbed Sakura too, pressing both of us tight against her as she calmed us down. She seemed to have thought of everything too, because soon we were strapped into a harness on her chest, and we were carefully, but quickly, moving out of the house.

We didn't make it far out of the house before a ninja came and got us, quickly carrying us to the safety of the shelters.

But it was in that moment that I realized two things.

One - I was in the Naruto world. The way that boy effortlessly picked my mother up out of her wheelchair and carried her to the shelters, combined with the emblem on his forehead, the giant mountain with faces etched into it that _certainly_ wasn't Mount Rushmore, and the _giant fucking fox with nine tails_ that was trashing the town made it pretty damn clear what was going on. Everything clicked into place for the first time, and I was petrified. Living in the Naruto world was asking for a death wish, or for heart break. But living in the Hidden Leaf village was a _promise_ of those things.

And the second, damning conclusion, was that I was powerless to do anything.

I learned that it wasn't about being determined or strong, or fighting for what you believed in, or some other morally high bullshit.

No, what I learned was that the dark shit you think is only in your nightmares is everywhere. That this life was full of pain and suffering, and there was nothing I could do about it but desperately cling to life and those I loved. The only thing I could do was clutch tightly onto my mother's shirt as we were rocked to sleep in the shelter caves. So really, the only thing I could do in the future, was to desperately cling onto what little I had by any means necessary.

At the end of the day, it wasn't a happy accident where I found a new determination to do better and protect what I had. There was no happy ending when countless civilians, and ninja, and children and mothers died due to the destruction of that day. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could do no matter how strong I got - there would always be someone waiting to knock me down and the only thing I would be able to do when that happened would be to desperately cling to life and try and keep the ones I loved. I wasn't a hero by any means. I couldn't be the big happy strong person that would be typical of a protagonist.

I was powerless to stop that from happening then, and I knew I'd be powerless to stop any future events that would take place in this world, of which there were many.

The plot would play as it always did, promises of heartache and pain that were etched onto the fate of this world. Playing it safe wasn't an option - there _was no safe_ when you lived as a ninja, and that was undoubtedly what I would have to do in order to survive, and keep my sister alive. You couldn't play things safe when you trained to be a killing machine, and are used as the pawns for some sick game that I didn't even know all the pieces to.

Perhaps that was my karmic retribution.

Being trapped in a world with people I loved when I had limited knowledge.

I had no detailed accounts of the people I would meet (hell, I'd only gotten to the Chunin Exam arc in the anime, and all of my other knowledge was picked up on from fanfiction), or the events that would shape this world. I had no idea what would happen, or how things would take place, or hell, how I would effect any of those events!

I couldn't play it safe because there _was_ no safe to play by.

Not when you're Haruno Umeko, sister to Haruno Sakura, future member of Team Seven, and one of the key heroes in the entire world. Apprentice to the legendary Tsunade, and one of the main people who would have to endure all of the pain and suffering that would surely drift her way.

My future, and the future of this world, was unclear, uncertain, and full of pain and misery.

And all I could do in relation to that, was to fight against the current and cling to anything I could for dear life.


End file.
